US Audit Board Escapes GOP Bid to Scrap the Enron-era Agency

Senate Republicans have granted a reprieve to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, excluding from the chamber’s tax-and-spending plan an earlier provision that would have dismantled the audit overseer.

Draft text released Thursday night by the Senate Banking Committee leaves out a previous measure that would have scrapped the board, the cornerstone of a 2002 corporate reform law passed in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals. House Republicans included a similar measure in their version of the bill passed in May.

Preserving the audit board is “good news” for Americans whose retirement savings and other ...